Educated Guesses on Architecture
(Non-functioning) clock, interior of 7 makara market, Kampong Cham, Cambodia.
The legacy of French colonial architecture is Southeast Asia mostly centers around the picturesque chauteaux and Art Nouveau monuments. Much less celebrated is the smaller, later buildings. Dating from the 1920s and 1930s, many have a streamlined design and are built in concrete, although still have some decorative flourishes that double as ventilation trellises etc. the Central Market in Phnom Penh is probably the best know example (and best preserved, thanks to its recent ADF funded renovation), but many small cities in Cambodia still feature, and use, these relics.
Brutalist concrete apartment building, Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam
Ho Chi Min City has a wealth of interesting modernist concrete buildings, particularly shop house style residential structures and industrial/public buildings. I presume that like Cambodia, this material was introduced by the French in the late 20s and 30s, when they abandoned the Napoleon III style fluffiness for streamlined deco and finally cold, hard modernism. This style doesn’t get much love now-a-days, but its impossible to deny that many of these buildings are still in remarkable shape.
